12/03/2025
🔦From Reactive to Responsive🔦
Maestro and his owner have been with us for a little over a year now. He is by no means a baby. He has gone places, seen things, jumped the jumps, and repeated. The one thing he didn’t have was the ability to take a breath and process everything he gets asked. This horse is a straight up pleaser. He wants to do all the right things, but often would get overwhelmed and over reactive if he didn’t understand or thought he did something wrong. Something different outside of the arena window…Kentucky derby here we come (and he’s not even a TB), have a slight miscommunication on the flat or to a jump….fours off the floor, rub a rail slightly….hold on rodeo princess, and sometimes as simple as you breathed wrong….panic. Did he have great moments as well, absolutely, but we wanted to start to have more great moments than worrisome.
Marissa, Maestro’s mom, loves him no matter the antics, but we agreed he wasn’t the happiest of horses sometimes under saddle. We came up with a plan to get him happy and confident in himself so she didn’t just enjoy riding, but he enjoyed his job as well.
Plans change as horses change. Marissa has been a great sport trusting our judgment as we took steps back in order to take steps forward. The process was not always a straight line, and we are no where near done yet (is anybody ever done learning?), but we have come so far.
The two videos may not seem like much difference to some. To us, it’s everything. The second clip was from the summer, and he has come even further since! The idea of Maestro relaxing and taking a breath enough to even start to stretch down and relax through his back/neck to search the bit a little…🤯. We have done so much from the ground, under saddle, and with his fitness over his time at SCS, I can’t begin to list it all out here.
Maestro and his mom are back to jumping again. They are going around communicating, miscommunicating, and enjoying either scenario with no worrisome or blow ups. Truly just enjoying their time together in the arena, and responding to what each other are asking.
It’s kind of like that sign “x days since last accident at work” that’s always playing in the back of my head, but Maestro lately just keeps ticking off the positive days. Even if we have to revert the tally back to 0, I know there will be so many more positive days to come.
Horses like this are exactly what SCS is all about. Taking the time to understand each horse’s (and human’s) individual personality, and come up with a plan for that horse to have success in enjoying their job and partnership with their human.
Huge thanks to Marissa for trusting our process, and to everyone else that entrusts us with the care of their horse! Continued updates on Maestro and more spotlight stories to come!
